Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2022 Feb 4;19(3):1780.
doi: 10.3390/ijerph19031780.

Burnout: A Review of Theory and Measurement

Sergio Edú-Valsania  1 , Ana Laguía  2 , Juan A Moriano  2
Affiliations
Review

Burnout: A Review of Theory and Measurement

Sergio Edú-Valsania et al. Int J Environ Res Public Health. .

Abstract

A growing body of empirical evidence shows that occupational health is now more relevant than ever due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This review focuses on burnout, an occupational phenomenon that results from chronic stress in the workplace. After analyzing how burnout occurs and its different dimensions, the following aspects are discussed: (1) Description of the factors that can trigger burnout and the individual factors that have been proposed to modulate it, (2) identification of the effects that burnout generates at both individual and organizational levels, (3) presentation of the main actions that can be used to prevent and/or reduce burnout, and (4) recapitulation of the main tools that have been developed so far to measure burnout, both from a generic perspective or applied to specific occupations. Furthermore, this review summarizes the main contributions of the papers that comprise the Special Issue on "Occupational Stress and Health: Psychological Burden and Burnout", which represent an advance in the theoretical and practical understanding of burnout.

Keywords: job burnout; job stress; occupational health.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Profiles and subtypes of burnout.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Development of burnout according to the socio-cognitive theory of the self-efficacy.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Development of burnout according to social exchange theory.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Development of burnout according to structural theory.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Han S., Shanafelt T.D., Sinsky C.A., Awad K.M., Dyrbye L.N., Fiscus L.C., Trockel M., Goh J. Estimating the attributable cost of physician burnout in the United States. Ann. Intern. Med. 2019;170:784–790. doi: 10.7326/M18-1422. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Simionato G., Simpson S., Reid C. Burnout as an ethical issue in psychotherapy. Psychotherapy. 2019;56:470–482. doi: 10.1037/pst0000261. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Grow H.M., McPhillips H.A., Batra M. Understanding physician burnout. Curr. Probl. Pediatric Adolesc. Health Care. 2019;49:100656. doi: 10.1016/j.cppeds.2019.100656. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Epstein E.G., Haizlip J., Liaschenko J., Zhao D., Bennett R., Marshall M.F. Moral distress, mattering, and secondary traumatic stress in provider burnout: A call for moral community. AACN Adv. Crit. Care. 2020;31:146–157. doi: 10.4037/aacnacc2020285. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Maslach C., Jackson S.E. Maslach Burnout Inventory. Manual. Consulting Psychologists Press; Palo Alto, CA, USA: 1981.